Seems like you need to have that discussion now, before you decide which college to commit to.
Also, if your parents are unable to contribute more than about $24k per year, then even the cheapest of your options (CWRU at $34k) could be out of reach (assuming up to $5.5k direct loan and $4.5k summer and part time work earnings). In that case, do you have any less expensive options?
Yeah I honestly agree that Iâm worried about being homesick. I would definitely enjoy Scripps more but I would have to take out loans to go there and I donât think my comfort is worth an extra 120k overall, itâs just hard for me to justify you know.
Unfortunately I do not have any cheaper options than the ones that I have listed because I did not apply to a lot of colleges. Case Western is my cheapest option right now.
What does that even mean. Most every school and certainly those you listed are outstanding - that includes Creighton and Baylor.
Creighton is the same price as Case. Is that a better fit for you ? 29% of Creighton classes are 30+, exactly the same as CWRU.
Both Creighton and Baylor are excellent.
Safety means nothing. Just an easier admit. Both mine chose safeties over reaches.
You know why - they fit them better.
Those schools will likely be as competitive pre med as the others.
You should find out what they can afford or are willing to afford but donât forget, undergrad is just half of school and the cheaper half.
You can still apply to others. Or start at a CC.
I donât know if theyâre still taking apps but CS Fullerton, San Bernardino, and LA are all LECOM schools.
This gives you that medical acceptance as a DO if the MD doesnât work out.
The Universities of California are all very good â both in general and for premed students. Unfortunately their application deadlines are long past for starting in September. There are hundreds of universities in the US that are very good for premed students, as well as for many other potential majors and career goals.
From what you have said, it sounds like your family just cannot afford either NEU or Scripps. For someone who is serious about medical school you really do not want to take on that much debt to get your bachelorâs degree.
I think that this leaves you with four options. You can attend the most affordable school that you got accepted to. You can look for schools such as Arizona State that are still accepting applications to start in September. You could start at community college with the intention to transfer to an in-state public university for your bachelorâs degree. You could take a gap year and apply to more affordable universities next time around.
If you take the first option, Case Western is a very good choice for a premed student. I do not know Creighton at all. If you take the last option, then I would be inclined to look for opportunities to spend some time working or volunteering in a medical related environment such as a hospital, and people here on CC can suggest schools that are likely to be more affordable.
Iâm from Cleveland. What do you want to know about the area? Iâm a huge fan of CWRU, and encouraged my own DD to apply there. She declined because we have family there and she had been there a ton of timesâŠwhich really was a poor reason, but oh well.
I think you need to crunch the numbers. The CA four year colleges do take transfers from the community colleges. That might be worth looking into financially. @Gumbymom might have some advice about this.
Re: going to medical school immediately following undergrad graduationâŠyou will need to take the MCAT fairly early in your college years. And you will be doing applications to medical school during the very early spring of your JUNIOR year of college. You will also need to have completed the prerequisite courses by the end of junior year of college, I believe @WayOutWestMom can verify this.
Keep in mind that preparing for the MCAT is not something to be taken lightlyâŠand you will need to do this while you are taking upper level full time college courses.
Many premeds take that glide year so they can prep for the MCAT, and beef up their ECs (patient facing work, volunteering with underprivileged groups, shadowing, etc). There is nothing wrong with this approach. You can do some ECs while in undergrad and concentrate on getting tippy top grades, which you will also need to have.
Please take the time to think about the financial implications of your current options. And please please consider your timeline for applying to medical school.
You can PM me for additional details.
CWRU is a great school, and they must have given you a great merit scholarship to get down to 34K/year. (I assume itâs not need based aid, or Scripps and Northeastern would have given you more aid than they did, right?)
Can you afford CWRU without debt?
If you donât want to leave California, and donât want to go to community college, CSUâs with a good residential experience that are still taking applications include Chico (deadline TOMORROW), Humboldt (deadline 5/1), Monterey (deadline TOMORROW), and Sonoma (deadline 4/30). These campuses would be a little less expensive than CWRU, but only a little. (Humboldt, for example, is around 29K/year full-pay in-state.) The CSU application is easy - no essays or anything - you could probably pound it out in an hour if you want to have more options without leaving the state.
But bang-for-the-buck wise, Case is a pretty great deal.
If you are unhappy with your choices or affordability is an issue, then you can consider taking a gap year and reapplying to some of the more affordable in-state CA colleges or you can start at a California CC and transfer. UCâs offer TAG (Transfer Admission Guarantee) for 6 campuses which guarantees admission if you meet the GPA and course requirements. I will gladly go into more detail if you are interested in this path.
I can tell you as a parent that falls into this income bracket, those schools are not affordable. Not without mountains of debt. And we live in Texas. California is much more expensive. Do you have any affordable schools on the list? UC or CSU maybe? If not, youâre better off starting at community college than going to these schools listed.
Of all the premed hopefuls coming out of high school, around 5% of them actually go to medical school. College is a maturation process where you discover your real passions. You canât go wrong with a state school. If you decide medical school, you have low debt. If you decide against medical school, you have low debt. Your best chance for medical school is your home state. State medical schools give preference to state residents.
I think OP really prizes small classes. Are there any CSU schools or UC schools that would allow this?
I feel the pull - afraid to leave home vs. I really want small classes.
Not sure that both are possible at the right price point.
So I agree on paper that Case looks good for you, but I also think it is true it is a âfitâ school where some people just really donât particularly like it there. Others do like it, but not everyone.
So I actually think it could be a mistake to force it with Case just because it is âgood for premedâ. Like, if you are unhappy there, that could contribute to not doing your best, and that alone could derail your plans.
OK, so, other options. I agree it seems like Scripps and Northeastern are unaffordable. I also agree you could reconsider making use of the California public system, because it is a real bargain for in-state students and would definitely provide you all the support you need for preparing for med school applications.
But alsoâwhat about Creighton? You seem to have dismissed Creighton for something like rankings reasons, but in my circles, it actually has a very good reputation.
Creighton is a Jesuit university, and those almost as a rule provide a really good undergraduate education. Indeed, I sometimes like to direct people to this US News ranking of colleges best for undergraduate teaching:
It is based on a peer survey, which have their limits, but Jesuit colleges almost invariably do well in this area, and sure enough, Creighton is tied for #26.
Another nice thing about Creighton is it has an associated medical complex. I donât think this is necessary for premeds, but it is certainly a potential convenience.
OK, then like many other Jesuit colleges, Creighton also has a very good location in a major metropolitan area, as in basically right next to Downtown Omaha. Now, if you are like most kids, you probably have not been thinking Omaha, Nebraska, is where you want to go to college. But Omaha is a good-sized city with a lot going on, lots of internship opportunities if you like, and so on. Moreover, I think the climate would likely be more to your tastes than Cleveland. It is usually a bit warmer in Spring and Fall, and although it can be as cold (or colder) in the Winter, it typically gets a lot more sun in Winter.
Long story short, I actually think Creighton could be a great opportunity for you (if affordable). It is certainly a popular premed choice (and like at all such choices, lots of kids get weeded out or choose other paths, but you hopefully know that), but also provides a great education generally, is well-respected academically, is in a really nice urban location . . . just seems to me like an option you should strongly consider under the circumstances.
I agree that the CSU apps are very easy.
OPâIf you can afford the application price, I think it would be a great idea to apply to one or more of the CSUs right now, just to give yourself some more options by the decision deadline. Applying to Chico today, say, doesnât mean that you intend to go there . It will just give you another option while you take the time to do a deeper dive into your familyâs finances, etc.
Good luck!
Being a patient (or a relative of a patient) is VERY different experience than being a physician. Youâve only seen very small part of what a physician does.
You wonât know for sure that you want to be physician until you have some greater exposure to what the day-to-day work life
of a physician is like. (Thatâs why medical schools expect students to shadow physicians and have hundreds of hours of clinical experience.)
Very few med students enter med school immediately from undergrad. The application process for medical school takes a full year. Students apply in May of one year to start in July of the next year. To matriculate directly requires applying during your junior year of college. That only leaves one 3 years to gather all the necessary coursework. MCAT score, experiences, LORs and other things that go into making a strong application. The application process itself is expensive and emotionally exhaustingâeven for successful applicants. So the advice is to do it once and do it right the first timeâeven if that mean waiting a year or two post graduation.
75% of successful applicants have taken between 1-3 years post graduation gap years before starting med school. Most use those years to improve their ECs by taking clinical jobs where they get plenty of patient contact and exposure to all facets of medicine.
And one more college option. If you hurry, you can send in an application and get a decision for University of New Mexico. They accept applications until May 1 to start in the fall.
UNM offers WUE scholarships for California residents majoring in biology. (Among other majors) The WUE scholarship will get you in-state tuition rates which will put your costs at around $24K for tuition, fees, housing and meals.
There is a hospital and med school directly across the street from the main campus (and very close to the freshmen dorms) for volunteering. There are cheap & frequent direct flights to ABQ from all kids of SoCal airportsâBurbank, Ontario, Orange County, LAX, San Diego, Palm Spring, etc. ABQ is much warmer than Cleveland in the winter (though not quite as balmy as Claremont or Pomona)
No, itâs not a private U like Scripps, Case, Baylor or Creighton, but it will get you where you need to go if medicine is your goal. And itâs significantly less expensive.
Case Western is a terrific school, especially for premeds. Yes itâs cold compared to SoCal and itâs not your typical rah-rah experience where students spend Saturdays tailgating but itâs friendly, quirky, and fun (for people who donât find tailgating fun 
). Itâs located in University Circle, a hopping neighborhood full of cool places and itâs within walking distance to hospitals, clinics, research centers
Since youâre a first gen student, you probably donât know yet that glide years arenât âwastedâ but very busy. Students basically have ONE shot at med school and they need to be the absolute best they can be when applying. That takes all 4 years of college and sometimes an extra year of clinical/volunteering/lab experience. Most would-be premeds never make it through the Premed pre-reqs, and of those who do only 40% on average get even just one acceptance. So you canât hurry - You have to do it well. You take the MCAT senior year, when youâre done with most pre-reqs and have dedicated months to studying for it. You have your job as a CNA or EMT or scribe, your work in a lab, your hours volunteering at a shelter. You keep up with your language-other-than-English skills. You attend all career center workshops to prepare for interviews.
This is unfortunately not true for California residents.
California is the single largest producer of med school applicants in the US. There are too many pre-meds and not enough seats. UCB alone produces enough med school applicants every year to fill every single public and private med school seat in California and still have applicants leftover. 2/3rd of successful California med school applicants will end up at an OOS med school.
Also, except for UCR (preference for San Bernardino and Riverside County residents ONLY) the San Joachim Prime program (between UC-Merced and UCSF-Sacramento SOM for San Joachim Valley residents only) and to a lesser extent UCD (Central Valley applicants ONLY), California public medical schools do not give in-state preference to applicants.
Thatâs not how the early admission program for LECOM works.
To get an acceptance into the early admissions program, one needs to FIRST apply to the LECOM as a BA/DO applicant. ONLY after LECOM accepts the student, does the student need to find an LECOM associated undergrad to enroll in.
Simply getting an acceptance to one the LECOM-associated CSU universities does NOT mean they will get accepted into LECOM. FULL STOP.
A student who is not part of the BA/DO program would need to apply to LECOM after college graduation and take their chances just ike everybody else.
Iâll let @momsearcheng comment, but I believe there are limited LECOM spots at the partner collegesâŠand as noted, the student applies to the LECOM program firstâŠmaking sure they apply to some partner schools.